The present invention relates to an electric cooker with at least two electric hotplates having a plurality of heating resistors and whereof at least one hotplate has an additional heating resistor which can be switched in by an additional contact of the associated power control device in an initial cooking or boiling phase, whereby said additional heating resistor can be switched off by a temperature switch on said electric hotplate at the end of the initial cooking or boiling phase.
Cooking units, such as built-in or flush cooking trays or hobs, ovens, etc. are generally equipped with two or more electric hotplates, which in each case have a predetermined maximum power consumption of e.g. between 1200 and 2000 W. The maximum power consumption in particular serves to permit initial cooking in a short time, i.e. the food being cooked can be brought from the cool state to a predetermined cooking temperature at which e.g. further cooking can then take place with a reduced power consumption. A two-plate oven can therefore arrive at a maximum total power consumption of e.g. up to 4 kW, whereas double this figure can be reached in the case of a four-plate oven. Both connected loads frequently draw more current than the mains current terminals are fused to accommodate at a normal level, assuming normally fused sockets, this particularly applying if the mains have a voltage of e.g. only approximately 120 V.
In order to reduce the resulting disadvantages and still provide a cooking unit with at least two electric hotplates which unit is simple to operate and which hotplates are fully utilizable at a low connected load, it has already been proposed to lay down an order of priority for the hotplates, the lower priority electric hotplate or hotplates only being supplied with current if the power consumption for the first-priority hotplate has been wholly or at least partly switched off due to the associated control or regulating process (cf. German Offenlegungsschrift No. 27 58 465). This construction is particularly suitable for cooking units, whose hotplates in each case have one or two separately switchable heating resistors.
In order to be able to carry out the initial cooking process in an even shorter time, electric hotplates are known (cf. European Pat. No. 0079483), provided with an additional heating resistor which can be switched in by an additional contact of the associated power control device for the maximum power consumption and whose maximum power consumption consequently exceeds the aforementioned values, so that when simultaneously operating two hotplates, whereof only one is operated with the additional heating resistor, an even higher connected load with the aforementioned disadvantages can occur.